This invention relates to interior design and decorating, and relates more particularly to a design system and method for assisting the interior designer in selecting, arranging and coordinating the elements of an interior design project.
Interior design or decoration is the art of creating and decorating an indoor space such as a residential or commercial room, and includes the selection and arrangement of furniture, wall coverings, window coverings, accessories and other design elements that make up the interior space of the room, in a manner that will harmonize with the architectural features of the room and produce an attractive appearance as well as serving the functional purposes of the room. Selection and coordination of colors and the like also are important parts of interior design.
One of the early steps in any interior design project is likely to be the creation of a floor plan--a drawing to scale of the room and its architectural elements such as doors, windows, fireplaces and the like--and the laying out of possible furniture arrangements for the room. One approach is to cut out scale representations of the furniture pieces to be used, whether old or new, and to lay the pieces on the floor plan in different possible arrangements. If new furniture and accessories are to be used, the interior designer can test different sizes, shapes and combinations to determine what will produce the best arrangement for the room.
This process can be followed by both professional and amateur or do-it-yourself designers. Professionals often take the process another step by creating an artistic rendering of a proposed design, or even of several alternative designs, for projects that warrant the expense of such renderings. These renderings can show finished perspective or elevations with details of the proposed interior design, including accessories and colors. For those who have difficulty visualizing from a floor plan how a room will look, such detailed artistic renderings are very useful. The cost, however, can be substantial, particularly if more than one design plan has to be created.
In the past, there have been attempts to provide materials for assisting in this process, including pre-drawn furniture representations to scale, typically using a scale of one-half or one-quarter inch to one foot, and calibrated papers for floor plans drawn to the same scale. Such materials, however, have been relatively crude and quite limited in the range of design elements that are available. Accordingly, their use has been limited.
The general objective of this invention is to provide an improved interior design system for these general purposes that is much more effective than anything that has been available in the past, and that can be used simply and easily by both professional and amateur interior designers in creating and representing interior designs and decorations, without the difficulty and expense involved in obtaining artistic renditions.